


string theory

by eugyne (AreteNike)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Katt Day 2017, Katt Week 2018, M/M, Pining, Red String of Fate, physicist matt, violinist keith
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-28
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2018-11-05 19:03:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11019624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AreteNike/pseuds/eugyne
Summary: "It's the strings, man," Matt says drily. "Strings, I tell you."Keith looks at him blankly."Y'know, because I'm a physicist and I work with string theory? And you play a string instrument? And we're connected by this string?" He lifts his hand, making the string drift upwards before settling again. "No? Alright, never mind."Keith snorts, but there's a tiny smile lifting the corners of his lips. "You're weird.""A badge I wear with pride."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> but i would write 1000 words / and i would write 1000 more / just to be the man to write the first katt soulmate au because its a trope ill never tire of / and fall down at your door

"I'm HOME!" Matt hollers down the apartment's empty hall.

"Yo!" comes a muffled shout from somewhere within. Well, that's one roommate accounted for.

"Hey." And there's the other--Katie pops her head out of the kitchen. "I've got some good news for you."

"Oh?" Matt hangs up his coat and takes off his shoes, and pads down the hall to peer into the kitchen; Katie is already back on a stool, laptop on the counter. "Gimme the bad news first."

"No bad news." She waves a hand over her shoulder. "We got concert tickets from work, but Hunk can't go, so there's an extra ticket if you want it."

Matt raises his eyebrows. Katie likes a lot of hard rock and techno and screaming bands, and that's just not Matt's scene at all. Well, maybe the techno, sometimes. "What band?"

She snorts. "The city orchestra?"

 _Ooh._  Matt plays casual, leaning against the doorframe and crossing his arms. "Now, what makes you think I'd be interested in that?"

She shoots him a look, clearly seeing through his facade. "Your crush is playing."

"...He is _not_ my crush."

"Sure, loverboy. Like you didn't spend half an hour screaming into your pillow when you found out I work with his best friend."

"Shut up, I did not."

"Mm, you did." Lance appears behind him, making Matt jump. "Is it drag-Matt-o'clock already?"

"It's always drag-Matt-o'clock," says Katie with a grin. Matt sighs heavily.

"Worst roommates ever," he says, forcing as much suffering into his voice as he can, because he _is_ , dammit. "But I _will_ take that ticket, and it's nothing to do with _anyone in particular_. I wanna meet your work friends already."

"Sure, you keep telling yourself that." Katie snorts. "We're leaving in half an hour, by the way."

"What!?" Matt jerks away from the doorframe, colliding with Lance as he enters the kitchen. Lance pushes him off, laughing.

"Worried you'll look like your usual unwashed nerd self when you meet your soulmate?"

Matt spins and thrusts a finger in Lance's face. "There is _no way_ he's my soulmate. He's too--I mean--it's statistically incredibly unlikely!"

Lance smirks. "Did you calculate your chances."

Yes. "No!"

"Liar," says Katie. "Some scientist you are."

"I," Matt says, turning on her, "am a _physicist_." He pauses. "And I'm going to go shower."

He leaves the kitchen to the sound of his sister's and roommate's combined laughter. Asses. Why does he live with them.

Not that they're _wrong_ , really. But he _does_ want to meet Katie's work friends, so there. That a certain violinist will be playing is just a _perk_.

He looks thoughtfully down at the little string wrapped around his finger as he stands in the shower. Right now it's phasing through the wall opposite him; he's pretty sure his soulmate lives in the same city, though, because he's seen it pointing through every wall. It's not like it's never occurred to him that it might be Keith Kogane--it's not like he doesn't want it to be, honestly, but he'll never admit that out loud--but it's an awfully big city.

"Hurry up!" Katie shouts then, banging on the bathroom door, and Matt remembers he's got a concert to go to and hurries up.

Miraculously, they aren't late for the concert; they aren't exactly early, though, and they have to fight the crowd to find Katie's friend Takashi.

"Pidge!" comes a shout, and Katie turns; then she's jumping and waving, and dragging Matt through the crowd. He's surprised to find a familiar face at the end of the gauntlet.

"Shiro?" he says.

"Matt?" Shiro says. "I didn't realize Pidge's Matt was you. How are you?"

"Great, who's Pidge?"

"Me, obviously," says Katie. Matt squints at her.

"Do I wanna know where that nickname came from?"

"No."

"Alright." He turns back to Shiro. "Nice to see you, buddy. It's been a while."

"It has." Shiro claps him on the shoulder. "I'd ask you what you've been up to, but your sister's kept me pretty up to date." He laughs, and Matt glares at Katie again.

"You knew, didn't you?"

"What, that my co-worker is the guy you got lost in Australia with back in college?" she asks sweetly. "I might have had my suspicions."

"First of all: we were never lost."

"No, we did get pretty lost," says Shiro.

" _Betrayal_."

He shrugs innocently. "It's the truth. We had to knock on someone's door and ask them to call us a taxi; that's pretty lost." Matt opens his mouth to respond but Shiro nods towards the theater. "Let's go inside? Everyone else is already in their seats."

He and Katie start chatting about work as they head to their seats; Matt follows quietly, taking in the crowds. He has to have watched hundreds of concerts on YouTube by now but it's different actually being here, and it hasn't even started yet.

Then he glances down as he shuffles into his seat, and sees his string is moving. He plops into his seat and lifts his hand to watch it, moving back and forth so much that the other end must be nearby. But they're sitting up on the balcony, and there's still a crowd milling about below; there's no way he can track the movement to any one of them.

"So, Matt," Shiro says, and he drops his hand quickly. "I didn't know you liked orchestras."

"I'm a man of depth," Matt responds flatly.

"He's got a crush on Keith Kogane," says Katie, the little traitor.

"I do not!"

"Oh!" Shiro brightens. "I can introduce you if you want. He comes across as cold to strangers sometimes but I promise he's just shy."

Shit, _Shiro's_ the work friend that's best friends with Keith Kogane? They've had only one degree of separation for _years?_ He can't spare the brainpower to deal with this right now, it's too staggering.

Instead, Matt takes a deep breath and awkwardly twists in his seat to put a hand on Shiro's shoulder. "Thanks, Shiro," he says, "but if I meet him I will literally die."

"So you do have a crush after all," Katie mutters, and Matt shoots her a glare.

"Shut it."

"Look," Katie says, louder. "There's no way you can pass up this chance, Matt, you're practically in love with the guy."

Shiro's grinning. "I think you should come! Keith kind of lives in his own bubble, it'll be good for him to remember that he actually has fans."

"Besides, you can finally find out if he's your soulmate or not. Either way, you can stop pining."

"I am NOT--" The lights dim. "I am _not_ pining," Matt says, quieter.

"Sure," Katie whispers, and then the orchestra takes their place onstage. Matt glances down at his hand a few times, but it's too dark up on the balcony to make out his string.

The concert is fantastic, though. Shiro points Keith out among the violinists--unnecessarily--and Matt can't help the little thrill of excitement and seeing him _live, in person;_ he soon loses himself to the music, though, and thoroughly enjoys the whole thing without worrying too much about who's playing. He even manages to forget that he's going to get to _meet Keith Kogane_ until the end, when Shiro points down at the stage and winks.

"No," Matt says, as around them the audience starts to file out. "Absolutely not."

"Absolutely yes," Katie says. "If you miss this chance you'll regret it, and you'll be moping for the next month and Lance and I are going to have to deal with you. You're doing this."

Matt frowns, but Katie _may_ have a point. So when they get down from the balcony and Shiro nods aside to an unassuming door guarded by an usher, he follows grudgingly.

The usher lets them in no problem--he apparently recognizes Shiro--and they head down a hallway that's much quieter than the crowded lobby. And then they turn the corner and enter a small room that's easily as crowded, but most of the people in here are dressed up in black, and many are still carrying instruments. There are little groups of people with some of them, families or friends, and no one gives them a second glance.

And then Matt looks down and sees his string is moving sharply, moreso than he's ever seen it. Which means his soulmate may very well be _in this room_.

"Katie I can't do this," he says all in one breath, catching her arm. She looks up at him, then down at his lifted hand, and grins.

"What? You think he might be your soulmate after all?" she teases.

"Katie, you don't understand," he hisses. "What if he _is?_ What am I gonna _do?_ "

She pats his hand. "Just be your usual awkward self. Maybe he'll find it endearing."

He opens his mouth, not sure yet how he's going to retort, but then Shiro shouts, "Keith!"

And Matt looks up, and sees Keith Kogane approaching, not ten feet away.

And Keith is looking down at his hand.

At the string wrapped around his finger.

The string that leads straight to _Matt's_ finger.

"I need to sit down," Matt whispers faintly, and does that, just sits right down in the middle of the floor and presses his hands to his temples and reminds himself to breathe. Dimly he hears Katie choking back laughter next to him, and a soft gasp from Shiro.

"What...?" he hears Keith say, and though his voice sounds as strangled as Matt feels, it's still music to his ears.

"Apparently," Shiro says with an audible grin, "he's a big fan."

There's a pause, and then a rustling noise and a smothered snort, and Matt looks up. Keith is now sitting on the floor in front of him, still all in his concert getup, chewing on his lip, eyes flicking across Matt's face.

"Uh... Hey," he says.

"...Hi," Matt squeaks.

They both look up to the sound of a slow clap; Shiro is grinning down at them both.

"You managed to speak to each other!" he says, and his smirk rivals Katie's for naked schadenfreude. Damn her, corrupting all his friends. "I'm so proud of you two!"

"Shut up, Shiro," Matt says, but he's not the only one; Keith says it, too, in near-perfect unison. They meet eyes in shock.

Katie cackles. Shiro gives in and laughs, too.

Slowly, Matt grins, and Keith grins back.

"Okay, now that that's over with," Katie says, and nudges Matt's knee with her foot, "introduce yourselves already, and then let's move this somewhere more comfortable, like that 24-hour ice cream place down the street."

Matt straightens. "Right! I'm Matt." He holds his hand out to shake, and Keith takes it. His palm is warm, slightly damp, though Matt's probably isn't any better.

"Keith," says Keith, as though Matt doesn't know who he is. "Matt... Holt?"

"Yeah. How'd you know?"

Keith's eyes flick from Shiro to Katie, and back to Matt. "You were in all of Shiro's stories from abroad," he says. "And a lot of secondhand ones from Pidge. Shiro never said you were the same guy, though."

"I didn't _know!_ " Shiro says defensively. Matt swats at his leg.

"How many Matt Holts can there be?" he says.

"336, last I checked," Katie says with a smirk.

"Still!"

"It just seemed like too much of a coincidence," Shiro admits, hands lifted. "Why would I be working with your sister halfway across the country from where you told me you were from?"

Point taken.

"Small world," Keith comments.

"No kidding." Katie snorts. "Are we getting ice cream or not?"

"I'm down," Matt says, and climbs back up to his feet. He self-consciously offers Keith a hand, and shares a smile with him when he takes it.

"I'd been wanting to meet you, actually," Keith mutters, as someone hands him a violin case. The group starts moving toward the door. "From Shiro's stories, you sounded... interesting."

Matt throws a glare over his shoulder at Shiro. "I can assure you I'm worse in person," he says drily, despite his pounding heart. Keith wanted to meet him.

_Keith Kogane is his soulmate._

Keith gives him this little twisty smile, though, that absolutely destroy's Matt's insides. He's going to be melting into the carpet any second now.

"I think I'd like to judge that for myself."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> keith, soon after: yeah tonight wasnt my best, i was really distracted because i could see my string pointing up to the balcony the whole time. but i can give you a private concert to make up for it. :)  
> matt: *drops his fuckign ice cream*


	2. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> suprise bitch i bet youd thought youd seen the last of me
> 
> i wrote a little bitty epilogue for katt day lol thats all, there wont be more after this

“Excited?” Matt asks as he and Keith edge into their seats up in the balcony. The sounds of instruments being checked and tuned rise from the pit in front of the stage.

“Sure,” Keith says. “I don’t get to go to shows very often.”

Matt raises an eyebrow.

“Shows I’m not performing in,” Keith clarifies, rolling his eyes. “You knew what I meant.”

“I did,” Matt confirms. “And I wanna go to your next show, by the way.”

Keith grins at that. “You come to all my shows. You hear me practice almost every day. You really don’t wanna take a night off?”

“This, Sunshine,  _is_  my night off.” Matt gestures grandly down to the stage–they’re in the balcony, but in the front row, thanks to one of Keith’s orchestra buddies. Keith raises his eyebrows.

“I thought it was  _my_  night off.”

“It can be both.”

Keith snorts and takes his hand as the rest of the audience shuffles in. The string that connects them is almost invisibly short like this–Matt can’t feel it, but he can see it wrapped around Keith’s finger.

It’s been a few months, now, but he still kinda can’t wrap his head around it, that this amazing man beside him is his soulmate. Katie and Shiro’s taunting can’t even touch him anymore, he’s just… happy. Really, really happy.

“You’ve got that look on your face again,” Keith notes as the lights begin to lower. Matt just grins at him–the overture is starting, after all. And he’s never been one to interrupt the music.

**Author's Note:**

> im at [maternalcube](http://maternalcube.tumblr.com/) on tumblr yall. also [vldkatt](https://vldkatt.tumblr.com/) lmao


End file.
